All
in all, the HR function is still to a large degree administrative and common to
all organizations. To varying degrees, most organisations have formalised selection,
evaluation, and payroll processes.

Efficient
and effective management of the "HUMAN CAPITAL" Pool (HCP) has become
an increasingly imperative and complex activity to all HR professionals. The HR
function consists of tracking innumerable data points on each employee, from personal
histories, data, skills, capabilities, experiences to payroll records.

To
reduce the manual workload of these administrative activities, organisations began
to electronically automate many of these processes by introducing innovative HRMS/HCM
technology. Due to complexity in programming, capabilities and limited technical
resources, HR executives rely on internal or external IT professionals to develop
and maintain their Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS). Before the CLIENT
architecture evolved in the late 1980s, every single HR automation process came
largely in form of mainframe computers that could handle large amounts of data
transactions.

In consequence of the
high capital investment necessary to purchase or program proprietary software,
these internally developed HRMS were limited to medium to large organisations
being able to afford internal IT capabilities.

The
advent of client-server HRMS authorised HR executives for the first time to take
responsibility and ownership of their systems. These client-server HRMS are characteristically
developed around four principal areas of HR functionalities: 1) Payroll 2) time
and labour management 3) benefits administration and 4) HR management.